America's nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don't like organized religion
America's nonreligious are a growing, diverse phenomenon. They really don't like organized religion
Ask Americans what their religion is, and nearly 1 in 3 say this -- none. That’s according to the U.S. adults surveyed by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.
“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.
I don’t mind people going to Church and practicing their religion, as long as they stay in their lanes and they’re not trying to force their religious beliefs on everybody else. Trying to better yourself and your community is great, there’s a ton of really nice people out there who go to Church and are just all around good people. It’s all the assholes that think their belief trumps everyone else’s rights that need to eat shit.
I used to have that really common thought of "I don't care what you believe in. Just don't try to push your opinion on me."
No. It's bullshit.
The very existence of religion is a psychological drain on society. We are all worse off the longer it stays around. There is no such thing as a good religious person and anyone who says they are religious I immediately distrust.
“Never do business with a religious son-of-a-bitch. His word ain't worth a shit -- not with the Good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.”
― William S. Burroughs
When your congregation are loud bigots, racists, and assholes, or when your clergy fuck kids and cover it up, or when the religion as a whole surpresses or hates certain genders or sexualities... This is not a surprising trend at all to anyone reasonable.
I read a really interesting book called How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion, and the author made some very interesting points.
It takes a seismic change in perspectives to change closely-held beliefs that are intertwined with our identities. I grew up as a devout Christian in an extremely conservative protestent young-earth-creationist denomination. I spent my Sundays and Wednesdays listening to the values preached from the pulpit: love, humility, repentance, understanding, protecting the vulnerable, meekness, charity, and unconditional love.
However, these same people when outside of church would spew tirades about "the gays", how poor people are just lazy, and how prayer wasn't allowed in school anymore. The love that was exalted above all other values on Sunday was just a platitude to give cover to hateful grievance.
And that was almost thirty years ago; they've only gotten worse. That's why people are abandoning religion in droves. The values that they sell are not aligned with the actual values of their congregants. Like the old Jim Croce song, their philosophy is "Let him live in freedom - if he lives like me."
Furthermore, losing one's religion nowadays is not the social exile it once was. People have support structures outside of organized religion. It's one of the reasons that Evangelical churches are so against a social safety net: it keeps the excommunicated from crawling back.
Religion is cancer.
It's about time. I have been fed up with religion since 1978.
all religions are based on lies and fairy tales
Religion gave my family and the closed groups I was forced to be raised around excuses for all their abuse and desire to judge others. Religion is a core part of all my childhood abuse and trauma and my own adult issues. I have zero interaction with any of them anymore, and I cannot respect anyone who proselytizes in the slightest about anything.
In my lifetime, those who followed organized religion of many types are always those who are the meanest, most ruthless, judgmental critical assholes I have ever dealt with. They sure put on a good show, but I've seen who they truly are enough to spot it anymore. All bullshit. Excuses for liars to hide behind.
Non-Religion is cool if you get used to it. 91% of all Germans are "Not practising any religion". On paper some 70% still are members of religious communities but otherwise we don't give a fuck and instead going to church we meet for beer and bretzel breakfast on sunday. We stopped being religious after two World Wars as God was never on our side. Now we ain't on his side either. Never been more happy.
Funny thing, officially Religion is part of school. But from what I remember it was more a history lesson. I remember every jewish and muslim holiday but not a single Christian Martyrer. Yes, around half of religious lessons at school was about other religions. Most likely because of selective memory - on holidays I could have beer and bretzel breakfast. Martyrers don't feed me.
I'm happy to be a part of that demographic. My upbringing only contributed to my irreligiosity.
I probably wouldn't have lost my faith if I was t constantly called a commie socialist for espousing 'christian' values and wanting to help the less fortunate by the very people who instilled those very values into my moral code.
Anymore I'm just a non-denominational pagan because at least pagans aren't such raging goddamned hypocrites.
I hope that as more of the world gets access to the Internet and information that more and more people will leave religions. When I was able to freely read the history of different religions and critical analysis by atheists it made my mind up fairly quickly.
I just sorta invented my own idea of what makes sense spiritually and only bothered to share it in a setting where shit was already deep and spiritual/philosophical.
I kinda like just inventing random mythology too every so often, my favorite recent one is that whenever someone says "I love you" for the first time, a Unicorn is born, and because of that a huge chunk of unicorns are in fact born as one of a set of twins, because the first time one person says that is often followed up by the first time the person they're saying it to says it back to them.
Don't believe in any of it as a "this is how the world really works!" kinda thing, I just like telling stories that I feel like would fit in a kid's book.
Nerevar, there you are. I have just started reading this Lemmy Post about Religion. What an intoxicating and grand waste of my time. Nerevar the only People that are happy without Religion are the Argonians, and you know as well as I, Dagot Ur(the god) how miserable these creatures are.
Not a single Dunmer in all of Morrowind would try to claim that they do not believe in god.
Yes Nerevar, i would kill them but that isn't the point.Will not have anything to do with these hate groups.
most are just pedophile rings anyway.
The time for organized religion to clean house and save themselves from being taken over by fascist child rapists is long past. Sucks to suck. Would be a silver lining in a sea of shit if I saw religion at least in America wither away and die in my lifetime.
is this the part where twenty somethings on the internet gather to exclaim loudly "I hate hypocrites too"?
then you should love jesus, because he hated religious hypocrites just as much as you do. In fact, it was those hypocrites who killed him.
If jesus returned today, he would be killed at a MAGA rally, probably.
i'm a christian in SPITE of the church, not because of it.
we are no different than the bug that just splattered on the windshield. one second your brain is screaming "pull up!". The next next second, _________
I was raised in church, and I would still call myself a 'spiritual' person. But church itself... it's just not it
I'm in Dollywood in Tennessee and almost everybody is wearing T necklaces and/or faith shirts.. it's kinda weird (I'm from d.c. area). I expected to see more red hats but have not seen a single one.
Reject nonreligious communities, join the religious non-communities. Choose your flavour between anarcho-catholics, Sikhs of the woods, or feral Zoroastrians
Permanently Deleted
Permanently Deleted
Im not religous but am spiritual, I prefer to come to my own conclusions about certain things.
why
I'm curious what the overlap between the growing number of atheists and regular users of Lemmy, because I'm not sure if the comments on this article being so one sided towards atheism is a product of Lemmy users being primarily atheists or if religious people don't feel comfortable sharing an opposing view. I'd love to hear a counter perspective, but as an atheist myself I'm not the person to start that conversation. I will say that society functions most properly when the majority of people hold similar views about most issues, when the Overton window is smaller, and religion historically has been a reliable tool for aligning people in that sense. It seems more challenging to me to be a kid these days, in the sense that kids are presented with so many choices for "good" that it seems harder to choose values. I'm not a fan of religion, but it's worth calling out that moving away from organized religion en masse does come with some societal costs.
I don't belong to any organized religion, I'm a democrat. Wait, that isn't how that goes...
Permanently Deleted